Spatial Pathways

Spatial Pathways provides information and guidance about possible course selections to complement different career orientations and discipline specializations. For students and their major advisors, Spatial Pathways may help answer the question “How can a minor in spatial studies enhance my degree in ______ / my career interest in ______?” In time, this resource will also provide substantive vignettes based on the actual experiences of students who complete the minor.

There are options!

With many courses to choose from in the minor, consider how your selection might complement your major, add credentials for meeting your career aspirations, or prepare you for advanced studies at the graduate level.

If you have an idea of what you want to achieve, design your own plan (your spatial pathway) and discuss it with your major advisor and with advisors for the Minor in Spatial Studies. Here are some examples of what other students are doing:

A major in Communication wants to understand how innovations spread globally and regionally, with the intent of pursuing research on related topics in graduate school. The minor includes courses related to the mapping of information, providing research and visualization tools for illustrating global patterns of innovation, and for analyzing information transfers geographically.

An Art student is keen on public art but wants to complement this with an understanding of the actual locations of art as situated in relation to the flow of pedestrians and vehicles. Courses in geographic information systems (GIS) and cartography provide concepts and analytic capabilities to meet her objectives.

A Philosophy student is oriented toward law school but has a significant interest in spatial representation in mathematics. The flexibility of the spatial studies minor allows for such exploratory intellectual development.

A Geography student is interested in the possible transfer of spatial concepts and technologies from other disciplines to his own interest in geographical landscape transformation. As part of the minor, he is taking a course in Materials Science, a discipline that studies the structure and processes of phenomena at a micro scale. Will he discover insights applicable to the analysis of earth-scale processes? We don’t know, but such curiosity-driven studies can sometimes break new ground in science.

An Environmental Studies major is looking at the spatial thinking focus in the minor to better grasp how human perception and cognition relate to debates over solutions to environmental problems.

The following table lists courses approved for the Minor in Spatial Studies that relate to possible career orientations and areas of academic interest. These are not programs but rather examples of how courses within the minor can be combined around specific themes.

Combine courses to create your own Pathway and discuss it with academic advisors

Why is Spatial Perspective Important?

Suggested Courses for a

Minor in Spatial Studies

Students must meet pre-requisites; no more than one upper-division course can overlap those credited to a major or other minor; no more than three courses from a single department or program

Geographies of Place

Human activities and values are shaped by the places in which they occur. The arts and humanities offer insight into the dynamics of human interactions that build identity with place. Regional geography provides one basis for linking place into a broader environmental and locational context.

Global Patterns

The understanding of pattern interrelatedness at the global scale is aided by historical context, theoretical perspectives from different disciplines, a focus on systems concepts, and the use of mapping and remote sensing technologies.

Human Systems

Human systems may be explored at biological and societal levels in terms of neurological processes, individual behaviors, and human interactions. Spatial representations and analyses of these systems provide insights into human thought processes, creativity, and methodologies for solving problems.

Operations Research

Integrated applications of mathematics, statistics, computers, and visualization technologies provide a basis for optimizing the spatio-temporal allocation of resources and designing solutions to complex problems.

Physical Systems

Physical reality ranges from nano to galactic. Yet, regardless of scale, the physical sciences and related branches of engineering depend on tools that enhance the measurement and representation of space-time processes, capturing evidence to support inferences about the structures and evolutionary development of systems.

Planning and Design

The built environment for human occupance is a product of planning and design. Regardless of scale (household, local landscape, urban region, or global environment), changes in the structures and activities of spatial units entail the representation of ideas and information, forecasts and evaluations of the effectiveness and aesthetics of potential outcomes, and making decisions about resource allocations.

Spatially Integrated Social Science

Spatially integrated social science recognizes the key role that spatial concepts such as distance, location, proximity, neighborhood, and region play in human society. GIS, cartographic visualization, pattern recognition, and spatially sensitive statistical analysis are important tools for integrating knowledge across disciplines.